There is a clear trend towards militaries integrating AI technologies into use of force decision-making. This extends not only to AI in weapon systems, such as drones or other categories of autonomous weapon systems (AWS), but also so-called AI decision support systems. These choices raise a range of critical questions and challenges that have been the subject of a decade-long international debate about regulating AWS and AI in the military domain more broadly.
This talk will provide an overview of the regulatory debate that extends across different international fora, including most prominently the Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (GGE on LAWS) that has recently (September 2026) concluded its final mandated session. I will reflect on both a broadening consensus around what should be subject to regulation, for example provisions around human control, but also speak to perennial obstacles, including a continuation of practical experimentation with AI in warfare. In the absence of clear regulatory guidance that includes a pathway to implementation, such military practices continue to shape social norms (particular understandings of appropriateness). These set potentially problematic precedents that can contrast with a broadening consensus around regulating AI in the military domain.
Ingvild Bode is a Professor of International Politics at the University of Southern Denmark, where she is also Director of the Center for War Studies and a DIAS Chair of Social Sciences. Her research examines how applications of AI in the military domain change international norms, especially on the use-of-force. She has published extensively in these areas, including in journals such as the European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies, Nature Machine Intelligence, and Ethics and Information Technology. Professor Bode leads large-scale research projects in this space, including the Independent Research Council Denmark-funded HuMach project. She also serves as an academic ambassador of the Lawful by Design Initiative led by Article 36 Legal.
